Alexi Gugushvili

• Brodeur, Abel; Mikola, Derek; Cook, Nikolai; Fiala, Lenka; Brailey, Thomas & Briggs, Ryan [Show all 347 contributors for this article] (2026). Reproducibility and robustness of economics and political science research. Nature. ISSN 0028-0836. 652, p. 151–156. doi: 10.1038/s41586-026-10251-x. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Science aspires to be cumulative. Reproducibility efforts strengthen science by testing the reliability of published findings, promoting self-correction, and informing policy-making1. Computational reproductions, whereby independent researchers reproduce the results of published studies, are an essential diagnostic tool2–10. Such efforts should have greater visibility11–16. However, little social science reproduction and robustness has been conducted at scale10,13,17–23. Here we reproduced original analyses and conducted robustness checks of 110 articles that were published in leading economics and political science journals with mandatory data and code sharing policies17,18. We found that more than 85% of published claims were computationally reproducible. In robustness checks, our reanalyses showed that 72% of statistically significant estimates remain significant and in the same direction, and the median reproduced effect size is nearly the same as the originally published effect size (that is, 99% of the published effect size). Additionally, 6 independent research teams examined 12 pre-specified hypotheses about determinants of robustness. Research teams with more experience found lower levels of robustness, and robustness did not correlate with author characteristics or data availability. Robustness checks and reproduction of analyses with existing and updated data based on 110 articles in economics and political science journals with data and code-sharing requirements found high levels of robustness and reproducibility and determined that robustness was not dependent on author characteristics or data availability.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2026). Comparing Trump to Hitler: public opinion in Austria, Denmark, and Spain. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. ISSN 1745-7289. doi: 10.1080/17457289.2026.2669141. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi & Jarosz, Ewa (2026). Feeling better off? A multidimensional approach to perceived mobility across life domains. Wellbeing, Space and Society. 10. doi: 10.1016/j.wss.2026.100392. Full text in Research Archive
• Tyagi, Rishabh; Baranowska-Rataj, Anna & Gugushvili, Alexi (2026). Adult children's unemployment and parental mental health in India: Social and economic heterogeneity. SSM - Population Health. ISSN 2352-8273. 33. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2026.101905. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study explores the relationship between adult children's unemployment and parental mental health. Given India's large inequalities in social capital and income, we examine the heterogeneous effects of these factors on the relationship. We utilise data from the Longitudinal Ageing Survey of India, which includes 73,396 individuals aged 45 and above. We analyse the relationship between the exposure to the unemployment of adult children and the parental risk of depression using the CES-D score, with respondents reporting four or more symptoms out of 10 considered at risk of being “depressed”. We employ inverse probability weighting based on a logistic regression model to form a pseudo-control group, accounting for confounding demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Our findings show a 3.14 percentage points (ppts) increase in absolute terms (and a 12.48% relative increase) in the probability of parental depression risk associated with adult children's unemployment. There are no significant differences between fathers and mothers in the increased risk of depression, but for the unemployment of the firstborn son, there is a significantly higher association of increased risk of depression than for the unemployment of the firstborn daughter. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that among older adults with high social participation, there is no significant increase in their risk of depression associated with their children's unemployment. Similarly, among older adults residing in low and medium-income inequality states, the negative consequences of their children's unemployment are weaker. Overall, we conclude that while adult children's unemployment is associated with an increased risk of parental depression, higher social participation and residing in low or medium-income inequality states might have protective effects on older adults' mental health following their children's unemployment. Governments may consider expanding labour market policies that support youth labour market entry as a means to improve not only the employability of younger individuals, but also the well-being of older generations.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Hootegem, Arno Van (2026). What Are the Channels of Equality of Opportunity Perceptions in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom? Social psychology quarterly. ISSN 0190-2725. 89(1), p. 1–22. doi: 10.1177/01902725251396778. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Views on equality of opportunity influence perceptions of fairness and redistributive attitudes, and yet the sources associated with these views remain underexplored. This study investigates how individual experiences, socialization with friends and family, and media consumption are related to perceptions of equality of opportunity across three welfare state regimes in Europe: Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Using original cross-national survey data, we analyze responses to a statement on current levels of equality of opportunity, employing—among other methods—an inverse probability weighting approach. Findings reveal moderate cross-country variation, with higher optimism about equality of opportunity in the United Kingdom than in Germany and Sweden. Personal experiences are the most influential factor: upward mobility tends to be associated with beliefs in equality, whereas downward mobility is linked to perceptions of inequality. Socialization with family and friends links to perceptions to a more limited extent. Media consumption also plays a role; individuals who watch reality TV shows are more likely to perceive greater equality of opportunity. As shown by previous research, however, this optimism may have counterintuitive effects; by fostering the belief that opportunity is already widespread, it can dampen public support for redistributive measures, potentially reinforcing existing inequalities.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Grue, Jan & Finnvold, Jon Erik (2025). The effect of anti-discrimination legislation on individuals with disabilities in Nordic countries. Social Science and Medicine. ISSN 0277-9536. 383. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118469. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Nordic countries are renowned for progressive welfare systems and a high quality of life, yet disparities persist between individuals with and without disabilities. This study investigates whether anti-discrimination legislation in these nations enhances socioeconomic outcomes for individuals with disabilities, focusing on subjective well-being, self-rated health, institutional trust, political engagement, labour market participation, and material conditions. The study uses a quasi-experimental design with a difference-in-differences approach, analysing data from the European Social Survey across Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The sample includes 10,974 individuals aged 25–64 reporting significant daily activity limitations due to illness, disability, infirmity, or mental health issues. Outcomes were assessed before and after legislation adoption (2008–2018) using an extended two-way fixed effects model to estimate treatment effects across time and cohorts, with robustness checks via placebo tests and gender stratification. Findings show no significant improvement in subjective well-being, self-rated health, institutional trust, employment, or material conditions following anti-discrimination legislation. A slight increase in voting was observed five waves post-treatment, but placebo tests suggest this may reflect broader trends, not legislation effects. Disability-specific laws in Norway and Denmark showed minor increases in trust and life satisfaction, although parallel trends assumptions held weakly, and placebo results raise questions about causality. We conclude that anti-discrimination laws alone do not substantially enhance socioeconomic outcomes for individuals with disabilities in Nordic countries.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2025). How Europeans compare Putin and Stalin in the context of Russia's war in Ukraine. European Politics and Society. ISSN 2374-5118. 27(1), p. 194–218. doi: 10.1080/23745118.2025.2511078. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study examines public perceptions of similarities between Vladimir Putin and Joseph Stalin across five European countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The analysis uses survey data collected between December 2024 and January 2025 to investigate how historical memory, geopolitical proximity, political orientation, and media exposure are linked to these perceptions. The findings reveal significant cross-national and within-country variations. Northern European countries, particularly Finland and Denmark, show stronger perceptions of similarity, likely due to historical encounters with Soviet aggression and geographical proximity to Russia. In contrast, Austria, Spain, and the United Kingdom exhibit more moderate views, influenced by different historical experiences and greater geographical distance. Within each country, individuals closely following news about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and perceiving the conflict as a significant global threat are more likely to draw parallels between Putin and Stalin. Political ideology also plays a role, with far-right party supporters in Austria less inclined to perceive similarities. These findings underscore the links between historical legacies and contemporary geopolitical concerns, offering insights into how past experiences shape public perceptions of modern authoritarian leaders and influence European political discourse on Russia’s actions.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2025). When the guns fall silent: the variety of European perspectives on the end of war in Ukraine. Journal of European Integration. ISSN 0703-6337. p. 1–24. doi: 10.1080/07036337.2025.2537359. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked intense geopolitical debates and public reflection across Europe regarding the likely trajectory and resolution of the conflict. Public expectations about the outcome of the war in Ukraine were surveyed across Austria, Denmark, Finland, Spain, and the United Kingdom using original data collected between December 2024 and January 2025. The findings reveal significant regional differences, with individuals in Denmark, Finland, and the United Kingdom expressing greater skepticism toward Russian territorial gains, whereas respondents in Austria and Spain are more likely to choose the war outcomes that favor Russia’s interests. At the individual level, political ideology, media engagement, and perceived consequences of the war in certain countries are linked to the end-of-war attitudes. Individuals who do not follow news on the war are more pessimistic about Ukraine’s prospects, while those who see the war as a global threat tend to reject outcomes favorable to Russia.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Daphne, Halikiopoulou, & Tim, Vlandas, (2025). Downward Class Mobility and Far-Right Party Support in Western Europe | Political Behavior | Springer Nature Link. Political Behavior. ISSN 0190-9320. doi: 10.1007/s11109-025-10033-7. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article contributes to debates about the importance of class in far-right voting behavior by focusing on intergenerational class mobility. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), we employ Diagonal Reference Models (DRMs) to examine whether and how actual downward class mobility is linked to far-right party voting. First, drawing on a framework that focuses on discontent, loss, and blame, we explore four types of mechanisms that may mediate this relationship: life satisfaction (discontent), income insecurity (loss), distrust of elites (internal blame attribution) and anti-immigration attitudes (external blame attribution). Our results show that individuals from salariat origins and working-class destination are more likely to vote for the far-right. However, the relationship between downward class mobility is only mediated by life satisfaction and income insecurity, suggesting that the class route to far-right voting is largely linked to existential and material issues. Second, we explore whether these individual-level variables, as well as overall national-level mobility, moderate the effect of downward mobility. We find that while mobility effects do not vary depending on these individual traits, overall national-level mobility does moderate the effect of downward mobility, suggesting that context matters for individual-level associations between class mobility and far-right voting. Third, we assess the extent to which downward class mobility is important for far-right party success by examining the share of downwardly mobile individuals within the far-right electorate. We find that while downwardly mobile individuals are likely far-right supporters, they constitute a small percentage of the far-right electorate. Overall, our findings show that downward class mobility significantly affects far-right voting but only under specific conditions.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Grue, Jan (2025). The effect of legislation on perceived disability discrimination: a heterogeneous difference-in-differences analysis. Social Forces. ISSN 0037-7732. 104(2), p. 688–709. doi: 10.1093/sf/soaf024. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Equalizing opportunities and outcomes between individuals with and without disabilities is a stated goal for most governments in Western welfare democracies. Yet, significant disability-based inequalities remain in many domains of life. One of the causes of this gap is the widespread discrimination of individuals with disabilities. Over the last two decades, most European countries have introduced anti-discrimination legislation to reduce disability-based discrimination. This study examines the impact of anti-discrimination legislation on perceived disability discrimination across 28 European societies using data from the European Social Survey and newly compiled information on disability-related laws. Using a heterogenous difference-in-differences approach, our analysis covers the period from 2002 to 2020, focusing on adults aged 25 to 64 who report disabilities. We find no evidence that anti-discrimination legislative changes reduced perceived disability discrimination in the analyzed countries. There is some supporting evidence, though, that the adoption of an anti-discrimination legal framework, in the long run, was linked with higher perceived disability discrimination among males. We conclude that across Europe, and in keeping with the persistence of disability-based inequalities, legislative efforts have so far been ineffective in combating disability discrimination as perceived by people with disabilities.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Nosrati, Elias & Kaiser, Caspar (2025). Equality of opportunity and mortality around the world: implications for global public health. Global health action. ISSN 1654-9716. 18(1). doi: 10.1080/16549716.2025.2540167. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background Educational mobility is considered a key driver of population health. While prior studies suggest that intergenerational equality of opportunity may be linked to mortality, most evidence comes from high-income countries. Little is known about whether these associations apply globally. Objective This study assesses the relationship between intergenerational educational mobility and all-cause mortality across a global sample of countries. Methods We combine country-level data from the WHO Mortality Database and the World Bank’s Global Database on Intergenerational Mobility, covering five birth cohorts across 148 countries. Using multilevel random effects models, we estimate associations between four dimensions of educational mobility (upward, downward, stagnant, and correlation-based) and age- and sex-adjusted all-cause mortality, controlling for national indicators of education, income, inequality, health spending, unemployment, and political freedoms. Results Higher upward educational mobility and lower stagnant mobility are significantly associated with reduced all-cause mortality. In fully adjusted models, a one standard deviation greater measure of upward mobility is associated with a reduction of 29.1 deaths per 100,000 population, while a one standard deviation lower stagnation measure is associated with a reduction of 27.3 deaths per 100,000 population. These patterns are consistent across high- and low-income countries. Conclusions Our findings suggest that promoting educational equality of opportunity may reduce mortality and improve public health worldwide. Strengthening social mobility, especially in settings with persistent educational inequality, can be an effective policy lever for reducing health disparities and supporting healthier populations.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Finnvold, Jon Erik; Dokken, Therese & Grue, Jan (2025). A Register-Based Study of Early-Life Disabilities and Income Attainment in Adulthood. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. 11, p. 1–19. doi: 10.1177/23780231251335191. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Individuals with disabilities are likely to be doubly disadvantaged, as they tend to earn less but require more financial resources than individuals without disabilities to maintain an average standard of life. Exploring the links between early-life disabilities and income attainment in adulthood requires high-quality data that allow accounting for selection into disability as well as a comprehensive list of predictors of income attainment. The authors harness the power of Norwegian register-based data and inverse-probability weighting regression adjustment estimators to examine whether individuals born with or who acquire disabilities in early life have lower income attainment at age 32 than individuals in the general population of the country. The results are robust to alternative estimation specifications and suggest that early-life chronic health conditions, such as asthma and diabetes, and impairments, such as sensory loss and physical impairment, are associated with significantly lower income attainment even when individuals’ actual working hours are accounted for among those employed.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2025). Intergenerational mobility and emigration willingness and intentions in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Eurasian geography and economics. ISSN 1538-7216. p. 1–32. doi: 10.1080/15387216.2024.2446195. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study presents a theoretical framework for an empirical analysis of the links between intergenerational mobility and emigration willingness and intentions. Existing research shows that immigrants are likely to experience social mobility in host societies. Still, virtually no studies indicate how upward and downward intergenerational mobility, taking place before individuals leave their countries, are associated with emigration. Referring to economic, sociological, and psychological theories and using nationally representative and comparative survey data for 35 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, we fit diagonal reference models to test whether intergenerational mobility in educational attainment and subjective perception of intergenerational mobility have significant associations with general emigration willingness and specific emigration intentions. The results suggest that subjective perception of intergenerational downward mobility has statistically significant links with emigration willingness and intentions, but this association is attenuated in more economically developed countries.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2025). Russian public perceptions of the war in Ukraine: a paradox of optimism amid crisis. Journal of Contemporary European Studies. ISSN 1478-2804. 33(3), p. 950–974. doi: 10.1080/14782804.2025.2472635. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study examines public perceptions of the Ukraine war, with a particular focus on Russian attitudes toward its economic and political impacts in comparison to other countries. Drawing on theoretical perspectives, such as the Spiral of Silence and collective action constraints, this research explores how sociopolitical context shapes public opinion in an authoritarian regime. Using cross-national survey data, the analysis reveals significant variation in war-related assessments across different populations. Findings indicate that while a majority of Russians recognize the war’s negative economic and political repercussions, a sizable minority remains optimistic. Key factors, including gender, education, region of residence, institutional trust, and media consumption, help explain these divergent perceptions. The study highlights how individual characteristics, regional contexts, and trust in institutions sustain public support for conflict in complex sociopolitical environments. Additionally, comparisons with other countries show that Russians exhibit less pessimism than many nations geographically and politically distant from the conflict, raising questions about the influence of state propaganda, repression, and social contract dynamics in shaping public sentiment. The study also underscores the lack of visible domestic protests, attributing this to a combination of government repression, nationalist rhetoric, collective action problems, and the emigration of opposition-minded individuals.

• Shi, Songyun & Gugushvili, Alexi (2025). Origin, destination, or mobility? A systematic review of studies using diagonal reference models. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. ISSN 0276-5624. 97. doi: 10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101047. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This systematic review examines 76 peer-reviewed studies that use Diagonal Reference Models (DRM) to assess the consequences of social mobility across three main thematic areas: health, well-being, and fertility (57 % of studies); political preferences (35 %); and cultural tastes (8 %). By analyzing these areas, the review identifies key theoretical frameworks, focusing on social position effects and mobility effects, and evaluates their alignment with empirical findings. For position effects, evidence suggests that destination status often outweighs origin status in shaping individual outcomes. For mobility effects, 58 % of studies either report non-significant results or do not explicitly examine mobility effects. Among the significant findings, the effects of mobility remain mixed and context-dependent. However, upward mobility generally benefits health and well-being, whereas downward mobility tends to have a detrimental effect. Recent studies have introduced methodological innovations such as mediation and counterfactual analyses. Still, key challenges remain. Subgroup analyses by gender and race/ethnicity are rare, findings are not always reported in a comparable way, and contextual factors are often missing. The review concludes that while DRM has helped clarify the role of social mobility in shaping individual outcomes, the field would benefit from greater transparency, more consistent reporting, and stronger attention to structural and demographic variation.

• Wiborg, Øyvind Nicolay & Gugushvili, Alexi (2025). Does partnership predict mortality? Evidence from a twin fixed effects study design. SSM - Population Health. ISSN 2352-8273. 30. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2025.101805. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study examines the association between partnership status and mortality, addressing methodological concerns such as selection effects and unobserved heterogeneity. Utilizing Norwegian administrative data on birth cohorts from 1955 to 1975, we analyze mortality outcomes using Kaplan-Meier survival analyses and Cox proportional hazards regression models. The dataset includes over 1.2 million individuals and distinguishes between partnered and non-partnered individuals. While results for the general population show that non-partnered individuals face significantly higher mortality risks, with hazard ratios of 1.59 for men and 1.47 for women, twin fixed effects models reveal no significant relationship between partnership status and mortality. This finding suggests that much of the observed association may be due to shared genetic and environmental factors rather than a direct causal effect of partnership status. By leveraging the twin fixed effects research design, this study provides a robust test of the partnership-mortality hypothesis, highlighting the importance of controlling for unobserved heterogeneity in observational research. Our results underscore the complexity of the partnership-health nexus and call for caution in interpreting simple associations as evidence of causality.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Wiborg, Øyvind Nicolay (2025). Wealth and mortality among late-middle-aged individuals in Norway: a nationwide register-based retrospective study. The Lancet Regional Health - Europe. 48. doi: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2024.101113. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In recent decades, we have observed rising wealth inequality while the pace of growth of life expectancy has slowed in many Western welfare democracies. There is scarce evidence, however, on links between wealth and mortality. The main methodological limitation in this area of scholarship is its inability to account for individuals' unobserved heterogeneity, such as personality and genetic factors, which could potentially affect both their wealth level and survival probabilities. This study aims to explore how wealth is linked to mortality risk in late-middle age, providing insights into the broader implications of socioeconomic status on health outcomes. In this study, we use high-quality register data on wealth and mortality for the entire population of Norway, one of the world's most advanced welfare states with a low income inequality level but a highly uneven distribution of wealth. We address some of the main methodological constraints of the previous research by exploring if wealth at the age of 37–38 predicts mortality up to age 62. The research design employed mitigates the problem of unobserved heterogeneity by using sibling and twin fixed-effects models. Both Kaplan–Meier survival analyses and the Cox proportional hazard regression results suggest that wealth is an important predictor of mortality even after individuals' observed and unobserved characteristics are accounted for with hazard ratios of 2.39 [95% confidence interval, CI 2.02, 2.83] among men and 1.74 [95% CI 1.39, 2.16] among women for the inverted cumulative density rank coefficients. The most disadvantaged groups are non-partnered men and women at the lower end of wealth distribution. Twin analyses align with the findings for the general population, indicating that wealth's effect on mortality is not confounded by genetic or shared family background factors. Our findings suggest that wealth is an important predictor of mortality, even in an advanced welfare state with comprehensive healthcare provisions, highlighting the need to address inequalities in wealth distribution to improve population health outcomes.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Jarosz, Ewa (2024). A longitudinal study of perceived social position and health-related quality of life. Social Science and Medicine. ISSN 0277-9536. 340. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116446. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background A large body of evidence suggests that there is a social gradient in the association between perceived social position and various health outcomes. Yet only a fraction of this research uses longitudinal data, and these studies usually rely on two data points in time, consider a single health outcome measure, overlook non-linear effects of perceived social position, and come almost exclusively from the Western welfare democracies. Methods Using data for 1921 individuals from three waves (2008, 2013, 2018) of the Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN), we fit between- and within-individuals hybrid-effects models with cluster-robust standard errors to investigate the association between one's perceived social position (self-placement on a socioeconomic hierarchy scale varying 1 to 10) and subsequent health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measured using the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) and its six components. Results We find that the association between perceived social position and health-related quality of life is larger when estimated between individuals than within individuals, yet in fixed- and hybrid-effects models perceived social position remains significantly and negatively linked with both the aggregated NHP measure as well as with its components such as emotional reaction, physical abilities, sleep, and social isolation. We also identify that starting to perceive oneself at the lower end of the social hierarchy is associated with a deteriorating health-related quality of life but a change at the top of the perceived social hierarchy is not linked with an improvement in NHP scores. Conclusions We provide new evidence on the significant and non-linear links between perceived social position and health-related quality of life and highlight possible pathways linking these two aspects of individuals’ lives.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Präg, Patrick (2024). Russia's invasion of Ukraine and perceived intergenerational mobility in Europe. British Journal of Sociology. ISSN 0007-1315. 75(5), p. 873–891. doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.13135. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this study, we shed light on the social consequences the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has had in other European countries. We argue that positive perceptions of one's intergenerational mobility are linked with political and economic stability and that the war can thus be expected to impact intergenerational mobility perceptions. We test our pre-registered hypothesis with representative survey data from three European countries, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden, which were significantly affected by the ongoing war. Our results show that individuals' war-related concerns in all countries are divided into proximal and distal concerns. In turn, proximal concerns go along with greater perceived downward and less perceived upward mobility in the United Kingdom and Germany. We interpret these findings by calling for expanding the horizons of intergenerational mobility research by incorporating areas of life other than socio-economic position.

• Bulczak, Grzegorz; Gugushvili, Alexi & Koltai, Jonathan (2024). The Heterogeneous Effects of College Education on Outcomes Related to Deaths of Despair. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. ISSN 0022-1465. doi: 10.1177/00221465241291845. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  College education features prominently in research on determinants of deaths from substance use disorders and self-harm—outcomes collectively referred to as “deaths of despair” (DoD). Limited attention has been given to whether the protective effects of college education on indicators of despair vary by individuals’ likelihood of college completion. We use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health for 6,145 individuals to test whether the protective effects of college completion on precursors to DoD vary according to individuals’ propensity to attain a college degree. Understanding whether the benefits of college education differ depending on the propensity to complete it is important for designing effective educational policies. Using the heterogeneous treatment effects approach, we find that individuals with a relatively low propensity for graduating from college but who complete it have a lower likelihood of depressive symptoms, binge drinking, prescription drug abuse, and hard drug use.

• Shi, Songyun; Chen, Yu-Chih; Gugushvili, Alexi & Yip, Paul S.F. (2024). Intergenerational Educational Mobility and Cognitive Trajectories Among Middle-Aged and Older Chinese People: An Application of Growth Mixture and Mobility Contrast Models in Longitudinal Analysis. The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. ISSN 1079-5014. 79(9). doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbae125. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi; Azarova, Aytalina; Irdam, Darja & King, Lawrence (2024). Hazardous alcohol consumption in slow- and fast-privatized Russian industrial towns. Scientific Reports. 14(1). doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-62077-0. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Hazardous drinking, defined as the consumption of homemade, unofficially made alcohol and non-beverages, is prevalent and accounts for a high proportion of alcohol-related deaths in Russia. Individual-level characteristics are important explanations of hazardous drinking, but they are unlikely to explain spatial variation in this type of alcohol consumption. Areas that attracted insufficient attention in the research of hazardous drinking are the legacy of industrialization and the speed of economic reforms, mainly through the privatization policy of major enterprises in the 1990s. Applying mixed-effects logistic regressions to a unique dataset from 30 industrial towns in the European part of Russia, we find that in addition to individual-level characteristics such as gender, age, marital status, education, social isolation, labor market status, and material deprivation, the types of towns where informants’ relatives resided such as industrial structure and speed of privatization also accounted for the variance in hazardous alcohol consumption among both male and female populations of the analyzed towns.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Grue, Jan; Dokken, Therese & Finnvold, Jon Erik (2023). No evidence that social-democratic welfare states equalize valued outcomes for individuals with disabilities. Social Science and Medicine. ISSN 0277-9536. 339. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116361. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  It is acknowledged that generous welfare states can provide better outcomes to their populations in terms of objective and subjective indicators of well-being, yet there is little comparative evidence of the role that the welfare state regime plays in lessening disability-based inequalities. Using a large comparative data set of most European societies, Tukey’s honestly significant difference and generalized Hausman tests for six welfare state regimes, we examine the assumption that social-democratic countries perform better in mitigating disability- based inequalities than conservative, liberal, Southern, Eastern European, and the former Soviet Union wel- fare state regimes. We compare the valued outcomes for individuals with and without disabilities regarding their education, labour market participation, material well-being, and life satisfaction. The main finding of this study is that the most generous welfare states in Europe do not perform better, and in some cases, perform worse, than other less comprehensive welfare state regimes in closing the gap in valued outcomes between individuals with disabilities and the rest of the population. We discuss potential explanations of these inequalities such as the nature of expectations and changing characteristics of welfare state regimes, and difficulties related to measuring disabilities across European societies.

• Bulczak, Grzegorz & Gugushvili, Alexi (2023). Physical attractiveness and cardiometabolic risk. American Journal of Human Biology. ISSN 1042-0533. 35(8). doi: 10.1002/ajhb.23895. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Objectives There is only limited evidence suggesting that physical attractiveness and individuals' actual health are causally linked. Past studies demonstrate that characteristics related to physical attractiveness are more likely to be present in healthy individuals, including those with better cardiovascular and metabolic health, yet many of these studies do not account for individuals' initial health and socioeconomic characteristics, which are related to both physical attractiveness and later life health. Methods We use panel survey data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health in the United States to examine the relationship between interviewer‐rated in‐person physical attractiveness and actual cardiometabolic risk (CMR) based on a set of relevant biomarkers: LDL cholesterol, glucose mg/dL, C‐reactive protein, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and resting heart rate. Results We identify a robust relationship between individuals' physical attractiveness and 10‐year follow up actual health measured by the levels of CMR. Individuals of above‐average attractiveness appear to be noticeably healthier than those who are described as having average attractiveness. We find that individuals' gender and race/ethnicity do not have a major effect on the described relationship. The link between physical attractiveness and health is affected by interviewers' main demographic characteristics. We carefully address the possibility of confounders affecting our results including sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics, cognitive and personality traits, initial health problems and BMI. Conclusion Our findings are largely in line with the evolutionary perspective which assumes that physical attractiveness is linked to individuals' biological health. Being perceived as physically attractive might also imply, among other aspects, high levels of satisfaction with life, self‐confidence and ease of finding intimate partners, all of which can positively affect individuals' health.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2023). The heterogeneous well-being effects of intergenerational mobility perceptions. Journal of Health Psychology. ISSN 1359-1053. 29(2), p. 99–112. doi: 10.1177/13591053231187345. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Individuals make comparisons with their parents which determine their intergenerational mobility perceptions, yet very little is known about the areas used for intergenerational comparison and whether these matter for individuals’ well-being. In 2021 we commissioned a nationally representative survey in Georgia in which we explicitly asked 1159 individuals an open-ended question on the most important areas in their intergenerational comparisons. More than 170 types of answers were provided by respondents and many of these responses went beyond the standard indicators of intergenerational mobility. We show that the areas of intergenerational comparison significantly differ between those who perceive themselves as being downwardly and upwardly mobile or immobile using the measure of mobility previously validated in cross-national research. Using, among other statistical approaches, treatment effects estimators, we demonstrate that some areas of intergenerational comparison, particularly in terms of income attainment, are significantly and consistently associated with internationally validated measures of well-being.

• Stolz, Jörg; Gugushvili, Alexi; Molteni, Francesco & Antonietti, Jean-Philippe (2023). A counterexample to secularization theory? Assessing the Georgian religious revival. British Journal of Sociology. ISSN 0007-1315. 74(4), p. 581–597. doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.13009. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Secularization theory allows for transitory religious revivals under certain conditions, such as extreme societal crises or state weakness. The country of Georgia has witnessed the largest religious revival of Orthodox countries and one of the most striking religious resurgences worldwide. This paper gives both a statistical and historical description of this revival and asks whether it is a counterexample to secularization theory. We show that the main thrust of the religious revival in Georgia lasted 25 years and seized the entire society in what was mainly a period effect. The most significant cause for the revival was a major societal and economic crisis starting in 1985 combined with a very weak state, creating massive individual insecurity. In these circumstances, the Georgian Orthodox Church was able to provide identity for individuals and legitimacy for governments. Other possible causes of the revival—state funding, too rapid modernization, or emigration—can be excluded as primary drivers of the process. The Georgian case shows a situation in which secularization theory expects transitory revivals and is thus not a counterexample.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Bulczak, Grzegorz (2023). Physical attractiveness and intergenerational social mobility. Social Science Quarterly. ISSN 0038-4941. 104(7), p. 1360–1382. doi: 10.1111/ssqu.13320. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract Objective Physical attractiveness is often studied in relation to various life outcomes, but there is a lack of research on its links to intergenerational educational, occupational, and income mobility. Individuals may use physical attractiveness as one of the channels for experiencing upward or avoiding downward social mobility. Methods Using data about 11,583 individuals from the United States National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we contribute to the existing scholarship by investigating if physical attractiveness, assessed when individuals are around 15 years old, is an important predictor of intergenerational social mobility measured after 20 years. Results We find that physical attractiveness matters both for males’ and females’ intergenerational social mobility outcomes, but it is more important for males, even when childhood characteristics, such as various aspects of parental socioeconomic position, individuals’ health, a proxy for IQ, neighborhood conditions, and interviewers’ fixed effects, are accounted for using imputed data for observations with missing information. Across three measures of social mobility—education, occupation, and income—physically attractive males are more likely to be socially mobile than males of average attractiveness. Conclusion Physical attractiveness is an independent predictor of intergenerational social mobility outcomes regarding individuals’ educational, occupational, and income attainment.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Zelinska, Olga (2022). What are the Trends and Explanations of Perceived Social Mobility in Poland? Applied Research in Quality of Life. ISSN 1871-2584. doi: 10.1007/s11482-022-10105-4. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract There is an increasing interest in the subjective aspect of socioeconomic position and its implications for wellbeing across social science disciplines. One of the emerging dimensions of this scholarship is research on perceived social mobility, its determinants, and consequences. To date, most existing evidence in this area is based on cross-sectional data and corresponding methods, which are biased by the unobserved heterogeneity of individuals. The latter calls into question existing findings on the nature of perceived social mobility. To provide more robust estimates of trends over time and explanations of perceived social mobility, we explore two complementary datasets covering the period between the late 1990s and the late 2010s in Poland. Due to the major economic, political and social changes, exploring subjective perceptions of intergenerational mobility might be particularly important in post-communist settings. The analysis allows us to conclude that, over the last two decades, significant changes in perceived social mobility have taken place in Poland. In terms of the individual-level predictors of this trend, cross-sectional and random-effects analyses over-estimate the importance of certain characteristics, such as age, education, or size of locality, yet, based on the results from more robust fixed-effects estimates, we conclude that factors such as subjective social position, household income, and objective social mobility are important explanations as to why some people believe they are doing better or worse than their parents.

• Groeniger, Joost Oude; Gugushvili, Alexi; Koster, Willem de & Waal, Jeroen van der (2022). Population health, not individual health, drives support for populist parties. PNAS Nexus. 1(3). doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac057. Full text in Research Archive
• Bulczak, Grzegorz & Gugushvili, Alexi (2022). Downward income mobility among individuals with poor initial health is linked with higher cardiometabolic risk. PNAS Nexus. 1(1). doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac012. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi & McKee, Martin (2022). The COVID-19 pandemic and war. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. ISSN 1403-4948. 50(1), p. 16–18. doi: 10.1177/1403494821993732. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Could there be a symbiotic relationship between COVID-19 and conflict? On the one hand, circumstances associated with armed conflicts may give rise to greater spread of the virus, while, on the other hand, the COVID-19 pandemic may create conditions for violence through heightened xenophobia and nationalism or may change the dynamics of existing conflicts. We illustrate this with the example of war in the South Caucasus, one of the hot spots of the pandemic. Elsewhere, COVID-19 may have reduced the intensity of conflicts in some places, but it also may have contributed to anti-government protests and communal violence. We call for greater emphasis on traditional public health measures in unstable settings coupled with actions to hasten the peaceful resolution of ongoing conflicts.

• Präg, Patrick; Ersanilli, Evelyn & Gugushvili, Alexi (2022). An invitation to submit. European Societies. ISSN 1461-6696. 24(1), p. 1–6. doi: 10.1080/14616696.2022.2029131. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi (2022). Information About Inequality of Opportunity Increases Downward Mobility Perceptions: A Population-Wide Randomized Survey Experiment. Frontiers in Psychology. 13. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.868303. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi; Zelinska, Olga; Präg, Patrick & Bulczak, Grzegorz (2022). Does perceived social mobility affect health? Evidence from a fixed effects approach. Social Science and Medicine. ISSN 0277-9536. 294(114705). doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114705. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Rationale The question as to whether changing one's socioeconomic position over the life course affects health has not been answered in a conclusive manner. At the same time, it has been established that individuals who think of themselves that they are higher in the social hierarchy are healthier than those who think otherwise. Objective In this study, we focus on perceived social mobility to shed new light on the issue of how social mobility affects health. We examine whether perceived social mobility, i.e., an individual's appraisal of doing better or worse than their parents, affects health by analyzing longitudinal data from Poland. Methods Using a fixed effects approach to account for all time-invariant and important time-varying confounders, we analyze the Polish Panel Survey which has been collecting data on participants’ social mobility perceptions along with information on their self-reported physical health and psychological wellbeing. Results We find that perceived social mobility is a significant predictor of self-reported physical health and psychological wellbeing, even in models that adjust for a host of theoretically relevant control variables. The results demonstrate that upward subjective mobility has a consistent and strong positive effect on health outcomes. The effect of perceived social mobility is stronger for males and for those with less advantageous social origins. Conclusions Our findings are in line with the “from rags to riches” theoretical perspective, emphasizing the positive implications of upward social mobility on health through various psychological mechanisms. Based on our findings, we call for greater scholarly attention to subjective aspects of social mobility in research on health outcomes.

• Zelinska, Olga; Gugushvili, Alexi & Bulczak, Grzegorz (2021). Social Mobility, Health and Wellbeing in Poland. Frontiers in Sociology. 6, p. 1–11. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2021.736249. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recently there has been a surge of interest in the consequences of intergenerational social mobility on individuals’ health and wellbeing outcomes. However, studies on the effects of social mobility on health, using high-quality panel survey data, have almost exclusively been conducted in Western welfare democracies. To account for this gap, and using empirical data from one of the largest and most eventful post-communist countries, Poland, in this study we investigate how individuals’ origin and destination socio-economic position and social mobility are linked to self-rated health and reported psychological wellbeing. We use the Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN) data to construct self-rated health and psychological wellbeing measures, origin, destination and occupational class mobility variables, and account for an extensive set of sociodemographic determinants of health. We employ diagonal reference models to distinguish social mobility effects from origin and destination effects, and account for possible health selection mechanisms. Our results suggest that there is an occupational class gradient in health in Poland and that both parental and own occupational class matter for individual health outcomes. We also find a positive reported psychological wellbeing effect for upward social mobility from the working to the professional class.

• Präg, Patrick & Gugushvili, Alexi (2021). Subjective social mobility and health in Germany. European Societies. ISSN 1461-6696. doi: 10.1080/14616696.2021.1887916. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  One’s current socioeconomic position is intimately tied to one’s health status. Further, childhood living conditions also exert lasting effects on the health of adults. However, studies on changes in one’s socioeconomic position over the life course rarely find consistent and systematic effects of social mobility for individual health and wellbeing. Such studies almost exclusively draw on objective measures of social mobility and do not consider subjective appraisals of social mobility by individuals themselves. We conduct an analysis of cross-sectional, representative German survey data to explore the question as to how subjective perceptions as opposed to objective accounts of occupational status mobility affect five self-reported health and wellbeing outcomes differentially. We show that objective and subjective accounts of social mobility overlap, yet this association is far from perfect. Further, there are relatively small associations between objective and subjective mobility accounts and health outcomes. Associations between subjective mobility perceptions and health outcomes are intriguingly independent of objective social mobility trajectories. Mismatches between objective and subjective mobility are also correlated with some health outcomes. We discuss implications of our findings that social mobility is associated with those aspects of health which are more closely related to psychological wellbeing rather than physical health.

• Zelinska, Olga; Gugushvili, Alexi & Bulczak, Grzegorz (2021). The Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN) Dataset: Capturing the impact of socio-economic change on population health and well-being in Poland, 1988-2018. Data in Brief. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2021.106936. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Polish Panel Survey, POLPAN, one of the longest continuously run panel studies in Europe, is designed to facilitate research on the socio-economic structure in Poland, inequalities and the individual life course under conditions of social change. POLPAN is well suited for studying how women and men's health and wellbeing are influenced by their life conditions, such as financial and social resources, that Poland's post-1989 profound socio-economic transformations impacted, and how health outcomes further shape individuals’ attitudes and behaviours. Initiated in 1987-88, POLPAN has been fielded in five-year intervals, most recently in 2018, with wave-specific samples representative of the Polish adult population and response rates for full panelists consistently above 70%. In POLPAN, health assessment measures are collected in all waves, as part of respondents’ multi-dimensional and life course inequality profile. Data on self-rated physical and psychological health, collected since 1998 (Wave Three), are complemented with respondents’ Nottingham Health Profile and core anthropometric information about personal weight and height (Wave Five onwards); health and wellbeing related reasons for work interruptions (since Wave Four); information on extensive hospital stays (Wave Six onwards) and respondents’ chronic or protracted illnesses (in Wave Six), respondents’ disability status (all waves). The newly released integrated 1988-2018 POLPAN dataset is available on Harvard Dataverse, or upon request, via e-mail: polpan@ifispan.waw.pl.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2021). Equality of opportunity and health in post-COVID world. Public Health in Practice. 2, p. 1–2. doi: 10.1016/j.puhip.2021.100135. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Links between equality of opportunity and health in post-COVID world must be an issue of general interest to academic, health, and policy audiences in the developed countries and other parts of the world. We already know that COVID-19 disproportionally affects most vulnerable and marginalised groups, while their positions in social hierarchy are strongly shaped by intergenerational transmission of advantages and disadvantages. Further, recent evidence from the United States and Europe also suggests that inequality of opportunity has significant negative consequences for health. This correspondence end with a call that decision makers, while rebuilding the post-COVID social model, should remember that equality of opportunity is not only fair but it is also good for health.

• Bulczak, Grzegorz; Gugushvili, Alexi & Zelinska, Olga (2021). How are social origin, destination and mobility linked to physical, mental, and self-rated health? Evidence from the United States. Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology. ISSN 0033-5177. p. 31–1. doi: 10.1007/s11135-021-01286-5. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract For decades, scholars have been exploring persistent inequalities in health by studying the roles of origin and destination socioeconomic positions (SEP), and the importance of social mobility trajectories from childhood to adult life in individuals’ wellbeing. However, this literature does not produce consistent and systematic findings on the relative importance of origin and destination SEP and independent social mobility effects. One of the main reasons for this is a set of methodological choices and decisions which researchers make. Arguably, one of the most critical aspects of research design is the operationalisation of SEP and the selection of health outcomes, usually without accounting for initial values of the health indicators employed. Using a nationally representative longitudinal dataset (Add Health) for the United States and diagonal reference models, in the present study, we examine how the choice of SEP in terms of educational, occupational, and income attainment, and the choice of health measures in terms of obesity, depressive symptoms, and self-rated health, influence findings on the origin and destination effects, as well as the health implications of social mobility. We also address the health selection problem by explicitly accounting for adolescents’ health in terms of each health outcome considered. Our results indicate that both choosing SEP and health measures, and accounting for social mobility and adolescent health have a noticeable impact on the relative importance of social origin and destination positions for health outcomes. We do not find evidence that social mobility has an independent effect on health, or that individuals’ previous health status moderates this association.

• Jarosz, Ewa & Gugushvili, Alexi (2021). BMI and dissatisfaction with life: contextual factors and socioemotional costs of obesity. Quality of Life Research. ISSN 0962-9343. 31(4), p. 1167–1177. doi: 10.1007/s11136-021-02912-3. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Purpose In this study, we investigate whether individuals’ BMI categories are associated with being dissatisfied with one’s life, how this association is affected by the social comparison that individuals make, and what the role of the overall BMI levels in this process is. Methods We use data for 21,577 men and 27,415 women, collected in 2016 by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, from 34 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. To understand the moderating effect of contextual environment, we use multilevel mixed effect logistic regression models and data for national, regional, and cohort-specific BMI levels. Result We find that the association of BMI and dissatisfaction with life differs by gender, with overweight men being less likely to be dissatisfied with life than men with normal weight and obese women being more likely to be dissatisfied with life compared to women with normal weight. For contextual effects, we find that obese women in regions with low BMI levels are more likely to be dissatisfied with life. The effect of obesity on female life dissatisfaction is not observed in regions with high BMI levels. As for men, regional BMI levels affect the levels of life dissatisfaction but only for underweight men. Conclusions Our study adds additional nuance to the quality-of-life research by showing that the association between BMI and decreased life satisfaction is, at least partially, moderated by the contextual environment, and that the character of these effects differs by gender.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Bulczak, Grzegorz; Zelinska, Olga & Koltai, Jonathan (2021). Socioeconomic position, social mobility, and health selection effects on allostatic load in the United States. PLOS ONE. 16(8). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254414. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The contemporaneous association between higher socioeconomic position and better health is well established. Life course research has also demonstrated a lasting effect of childhood socioeconomic conditions on adult health and well-being. Yet, little is known about the separate health effects of intergenerational mobility—moving into a different socioeconomic position than one’s parents—among early adults in the United States. Most studies on the health implications of mobility rely on cross-sectional datasets, which makes it impossible to differentiate between health selection and social causation effects. In addition, understanding the effects of social mobility on health at a relatively young age has been hampered by the paucity of health measures that reliably predict disease onset. Analysing 4,713 respondents aged 25 to 32 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health’s Waves I and IV, we use diagonal reference models to separately identify the effects of socioeconomic origin and destination, as well as social mobility on allostatic load among individuals in the United States. Using a combined measure of educational and occupational attainment, and accounting for individuals’ initial health, we demonstrate that in addition to health gradient among the socially immobile, individuals’ socioeconomic origin and destination are equally important for multi-system physiological dysregulation. Short-range upward mobility also has a positive and significant association with health. After mitigating health selection concerns in our observational data, this effect is observed only among those reporting poor health before experiencing social mobility. Our findings move towards the reconciliation of two theoretical perspectives, confirming the positive effect of upward mobility as predicted by the “rags to riches” perspective, while not contradicting potential costs associated with more extensive upward mobility experiences as predicted by the dissociative thesis.

• McKee, Martin; Gugushvili, Alexi; Koltai, Jonathan & Stuckler, David (2021). Are populist leaders creating the conditions for the spread of covid-19? Comment on “a scoping review of populist radical right parties’ influence on welfare policy and its implications for population health in europe”. International Journal of Health Policy and Management. 10(8), p. 511–515. doi: 10.34172/ijhpm.2020.124. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi & Präg, Patrick (2021). Intergenerational social mobility and health in Russia: Mind over matter? Advances in Life Course Research. ISSN 1569-4909. 47, p. 1–13. doi: 10.1016/j.alcr.2020.100390. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The consequences of changing one’s socio-economic status over the life course—i.e. social mobility—for individual health are not well understood. Theories of the health implications of social mobility draw on the human perception of one’s changing conditions, but empirical studies mostly examine the health implications of moving from objectively defined indicators of parental socio-economic position such as education, occupation, or income, to own socio-economic position in adult life. Little is known about the consequences of individuals’ own assessment of changes in socio-economic position for health outcomes. In this study, we examine the association of social mobility and health in a unique sample of the Russian population after the transition to a market society. We take a broad perspective on social mobility, putting emphasis on subjectively perceived social mobility. Results show that individuals’ objective characteristics only partially explain the variation in their subjective perceptions of intergenerational mobility. Net of social origin and destination variables, subjective social mobility is associated with individuals’ health outcomes, as measured by the 12-Item Short Form Health Survey. Those who perceive being upwardly mobile report better health, and downward mobility is associated with poorer health. The association holds for mental and physical health, for perceived downward and upward social mobility, and for a general subjective measure of mobility and a subjective measure prompting respondents to only think of mobility in terms of occupation. These findings are robust to controlling for a rich set of socio-demographic predictors on childhood adversity, contemporaneous material wellbeing, and family-related circumstances. We conclude that a conventional focus on single socio-economic status dimensions such as occupation might be too narrow to capture the health consequences of social mobility.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Reeves, Aaron (2021). How democracy alters our view of inequality — and what it means for our health. Social Science and Medicine. ISSN 0277-9536. 283(114190), p. 1–12. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114190. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background Income inequality is associated with poor health when economic disparities are especially salient. Yet, political institutions may alter this relationship because democracies (as opposed to autocracies) may be more inclined to frame inequalities in negative rather than positive ways. Living in a particular political system potentially alters the messages individuals receive about whether inequality is large or small, good or bad, and this, in turn, might affect whether beliefs about inequality influence health. Further, media coverage of economic inequality may negatively affect health if it contributes toward the general perception that the gap between rich and poor has gone up, even if there has been no change in income differentials. Methods In this study, we explore the relationship between democracy, perceptions of inequality, and self-rated health across 28 post-communist countries using survey and macro-level data, multilevel regression models, and inverse probability weighting to estimate the average treatment effect on the treated. Results We find that self-rated health is higher in more democratic countries and lower among people who believe that inequality has risen in the last few years. Moreover, we observe that people in democracies are more likely to learn about rising inequality through watching television and that when they do it has a more harmful effect on their health than when people in autocracies learn about rising inequality through the same channel, suggesting that in countries where there is less trust in the television media learning about rising inequality is not as harmful for health. Conclusions Our results indicate that while democracies are generally good for well-being, they may not be unambiguously positive for health. This does not mean, of course, that inequality is good for health nor that, on average, autocracies have better health than democracies; but rather that being more aware of inequality can negatively affect self-rated health.

• McKee, Martin; Gugushvili, Alexi; Koltai, Jonathan & Stuckler, David (2020). Are Populist Leaders Creating the Conditions for the Spread of COVID-19? International Journal of Health Policy and Management. p. 1–5. doi: 10.34172/IJHPM.2020.124. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Do populist leaders contribute to the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)? While all governments have struggled to respond to the pandemic, it is now becoming clear that some political leaders have performed much better than others. Among the worst performing are those that have risen to power on populist agendas, such as in the United States, Brazil, Russia, India, and the United Kingdom. Populist leaders have tended to: blame "others" for the pandemic, such as immigrants and the Chinese government; deny evidence and show contempt for institutions that generate it; and portray themselves as the voice of the common people against an out-of-touch ‘elite.’ In our short commentary, focusing on those countries with the most cases, we find that populist leaders appear to be undermining an effective response to COVID-19. Perversely, they may also gain politically from doing so, as historically populist leaders benefit from suffering and ill health. Clearly more research is needed on the curious correlation of populism and public health. Notwithstanding gaps in the evidence, health professionals have a duty to speak out against these practices to prevent avoidable loss of life.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Koltai, Jonathan; Stuckler, David & McKee, Martin (2020). Votes, populism, and pandemics. International Journal of Public Health. ISSN 1661-8556. 65, p. 721–722. doi: 10.1007/s00038-020-01450-y. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi & Kaiser, Caspar (2020). Equality of opportunity is linked to lower mortality in Europe. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. ISSN 0143-005X. 74, p. 151–157. doi: 10.1136/jech-2019-212540. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background This study investigates if intergenerational equality of opportunity is linked to mortality in 30 European countries. Equality of opportunity may lead to greater returns on health investments and, consequently, improved health outcomes. In turn, a perceived lack of fairness in the distribution of life chances and limited possibilities for upward intergenerational mobility can cause anxiety among individuals and gradually compromise their health. Methods We used information on 163 467 individuals’ and their parents’ Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status from a large survey data set—the European Social Survey—to generate three complementary measures of equality of opportunity. We then linked these to administrative data on total, gender-specific and cause-specific mortality rates assembled by Eurostat from the national statistical offices. Results We found that lower equality of opportunity, measured by the attainment of individuals from the lowest and highest quartiles of socioeconomic status and by the overall intergenerational correlation in socioeconomic status, was related to higher mortality rates, particularly in relation to diseases of the nervous system and the sense organs, diseases of the respiratory system and external causes of mortality. Our measures of equality of opportunity were more consistently linked with mortality of men than women. Conclusion Equality of opportunity may be an important explanation of mortality that warrants further research. Measures that aim at facilitating intergenerational social mobility can be justified not only via normative considerations of equality of opportunity but also in terms of individuals’ chances to enjoy healthy lives.

• Jarosz, Ewa & Gugushvili, Alexi (2020). The ‘good life’ of Polish migrants in Britain: Daily behaviours and subjective well‐being of migrants, stayers and the British. Population, Space and Place. ISSN 1544-8444. 26(7), p. 1–13. doi: 10.1002/psp.2343. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The situation of Polish migrants in Britain has mostly been analysed from the labour market perspective. More recently, research has also addressed the topic of migrants' social connections, identity and integration. However, little is known about their everyday lifestyle practices, in particular the nonmarket behaviours, such as socialising or consumption. These behaviours are constitutive for migrants' ‘homemaking’ in Britain and may impact their mobility decisions. Using a pooled data set of two nationally representative time‐use surveys (Polish and British), this study analysed how much time migrants allocated on a daily basis to selected nonmarket activities and compared it to time‐use patterns of the British and of Poles living in Poland. Regarding behaviours, Polish migrants were more similar to the British than to Poles in Poland. However, they spent least time socialising and showed very low participation rates in civic and community activities. They also seemed to derive less satisfaction from social life than either stayers or the British.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2020). Why do people perceive themselves as being downwardly or upwardly mobile? Acta Sociologica. ISSN 0001-6993. p. 1–21. doi: 10.1177/0001699320929742. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study explores individual and contextual explanations of why some people perceive themselves as being mobile and others do not. While subjective social position in recent decades has become an important topic of sociological enquiry, only a handful of studies explicitly investigate the nature of subjective perception of intergenerational mobility. When assessing their performance in comparison to their parents, individuals are likely to consider many other aspects of their lives than the attainment of socio-economic position. For empirical analysis, I operationalise an objective indicator of intergenerational mobility, often assumed to be the central explanation of perceptions of mobility, by means of intergenerational educational trajectories. In addition to exploring individual-level explanations, I use multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regression models to test how contextual environment is associated with perceived intergenerational mobility across 35 societies in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Results indicate that an objective measure of intergenerational mobility and other individual-level factors are important explanations of subjective intergenerational mobility. Further, the difference in economic development between individuals’ birth years and the year of interview is the most salient contextual factor explaining perceived intergenerational mobility, while contemporary economic development and short-term economic growth also reduce the likelihood of perceived downward mobility. The findings of this study contribute to sociological literature by highlighting the importance of contextual environment and factors beyond socio-economic characteristics for individuals’ perception of intergenerational mobility.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2020). A Population Health Perspective on the Trump Administration, Brexit, and Right-Wing Populism in Europe. American Journal of Public Health. ISSN 0090-0036. 110(3), p. 274–276. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305535. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recent electoral outcomes in many Western welfare democracies show a rise in voting for populist political options. Arguably, the two most impactful cases of this kind are the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the results of the referendum conducted in 2016 in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, popularly known as “Brexit.” Public health scholars and health professionals are already identifying ongoing and projected consequences of these electoral outcomes in terms of the effects on health care services and on the broader social determinants of health. After a steady decline in the level of the uninsured population in the United States, the recent data suggest that the number of uninsured people might be rising again, while in the United Kingdom, even the most positive Brexit scenarios are projected to lead to an overall negative effect on the National Health Service.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2020). Which socio-economic comparison groups do individuals choose and why? European Societies. ISSN 1461-6696. p. 1–27. doi: 10.1080/14616696.2020.1793214. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Socio-economic comparison among individuals is the process by which individuals assess their own socio-economic position in relation to others. In this study we identify which are the most salient groups in socio-economic comparisons among individuals, clarify the role of individual-level characteristics in the selection of specific comparison groups, and test if contextual factors explain variation in individuals’ choices regarding their socio-economic comparison groups. We utilise a unique data-set that allows the choice of socio-economic comparison groups in 34 countries in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia to be investigated. The results indicate that individuals make socio-comparisons not only with close groups, such as friends and neighbours, but also within their own families, cross-nationally, and over time. Multilevel and multivariable analyses suggest that individuals’ demographic and socio-economic characteristics and the extent of their social trust are significantly linked with the selection of specific comparison groups. We also find that the distance from the city of Frankfurt in Germany of countries where individuals live is an important factor in why people compare their own socio-economic position with those who live in Western Europe.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Zhao, ‪‪Yizhang & Bukodi, Erzsebet (2020). Intergenerational educational mobility and smoking: a study of 20 European countries using diagonal reference models. Public Health. ISSN 0033-3506. 181, p. 94–101. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2019.12.009. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Objectives Intergenerational educational mobility can be particularly relevant for smoking because it implies moving from individuals' family background to a new position in the social hierarchy. Existing research, however, does not provide an answer as to how the process of mobility, per se, is associated with the likelihood of smoking. Study design We used cross-nationally comparable survey data for 20 countries collected within the health module of the European Social Survey in 2014. The analytical sample consisted of 22,336 respondents aged 25–64 years. Methods Smoking was operationalized by daily and occasional smoking, while the intergenerational educational mobility variable was derived from a comparison of respondents' and their parents' highest levels of educational attainment. We employed diagonal reference models to examine the association of intergenerational educational mobility and smoking. Results In the country- and age-adjusted analysis, intergenerational downward mobility was associated with odds ratios of 1.34 (CI95 1.07, 1.68) and 1.61 (CI95 1.34, 1.93) for smoking, respectively, among men and women. Intergenerational upward mobility, on the other hand, was negatively associated with smoking but only among women. Conclusion Our findings provide new evidence that the process of intergenerational educational mobility is associated with individuals' likelihood of smoking and that this effect cannot be explained by conventional covariates of smoking.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2020). Social origins of support for democracy: a study of intergenerational mobility. International Review of Sociology. ISSN 0390-6701. 30(2), p. 376–396. doi: 10.1080/03906701.2020.1776918. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recent evidence suggests that popular disaffection with liberal-democratic norms and institutions has been growing in different regions of the world, but studying the social origins of democratic versus authoritarian political preferences are especially relevant in countries with immature democratic practices. The main concern of this article is the association between intergenerational social mobility and support for democracy in post-socialist societies. I present a theoretical framework in which individuals’ political attitudes are affected by their intergenerational social mobility experiences. I model this theoretical argument using two complementary data-sets and various multivariable and multilevel statistical techniques. The results indicate that intergenerational social mobility, particularly its subjective perception, has statistically significant links with attitudes towards democracy and that this association is moderated by the attained level of democracy in the country where an individual resides. This may suggest that studying social origins of support for democracy by means of intergenerational social mobility can be an important tool to understand the conundrum of democratisation and democratic backsliding in post-socialist societies.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Kabachnik, Peter (2019). Stalin on Their Minds: A Comparative analysis of Public Perceptions of the Soviet Dictator in Russia and Georgia. International Journal of Sociology. ISSN 0020-7659. 49(5-6), p. 317–341. doi: 10.1080/00207659.2019.1661559. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recently there has been a renewed focus on analyzing post-communist memory, including the revitalization of debate on contemporary public perceptions of Josef Stalin. How do Russians and Georgians judge Stalin in the post-Soviet present? What individual characteristics are the best indicators of how someone evaluates Stalin? Scholars have offered various insights into the apparent resurgence of appreciation for the late Soviet leader, including nostalgia for the Soviet period, socio-spatial variables, and political attitudes, but no comparative research on attitudes and their explanations has been attempted. Using nationally representative survey data, this study compares the perceptions of Stalin in contemporary Russia and contrasts it with how people view the Soviet dictator in Georgia, his home country. We conclude that Stalin is alive in the minds of many, both in Georgia and Russia, although for different reasons. If in Georgia the admiration of Stalin is largely explained by socio-demographic and socio-spatial variables, in Russia it is more closely related to ideological and political context.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; McKee, Martin & Murphy, Michael (2019). Intergenerational Mobility in Relative Educational Attainment and Health-Related Behaviours. Social Indicators Research. ISSN 0303-8300. 141, p. 413–441. doi: 10.1007/s11205-017-1834-7. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Research on intergenerational social mobility and health-related behaviours yields mixed findings. Depending on the direction of mobility and the type of mechanisms involved, we can expect positive or negative association between intergenerational mobility and health-related behaviours. Using data from a retrospective cohort study, conducted in more than 100 towns across Belarus, Hungary and Russia, we fit multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regressions with two measures of health-related behaviours: binge drinking and smoking. The main explanatory variable, intergenerational educational mobility is operationalised in terms of relative intergenerational educational trajectories based on the prevalence of specified qualifications in parental and offspring generations. In each country the associations between intergenerational educational mobility, binge drinking and smoking was examined with incidence rate ratios and predicted probabilities, using multiply imputed dataset for missing data and controlling for important confounders of health-related behaviours. We find that intergenerational mobility in relative educational attainment has varying association with binge drinking and smoking and the strength and direction of these effects depend on the country of analysis, the mode of mobility, the gender of respondents and the type of health-related behaviour. Along with accumulation and Falling from Grace hypotheses of the consequences of intergenerational mobility, our findings suggest that upward educational mobility in certain instances might be linked to improved health-related behaviours.

• Doniec, Katarzyna; Stefler, Denes; Murphy, Michael & Gugushvili, Alexi (2019). Education and mortality in three Eastern European populations: findings from the PrivMort retrospective cohort study. European Journal of Public Health. ISSN 1101-1262. 29(3), p. 549–554. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/cky254. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi (2019). Equality of Opportunity and Mortality in Europe. European Journal of Public Health. ISSN 1101-1262. 29. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi (2019). Parental Education, Health Literacy and Children’s Height in Adult Life. European Journal of Public Health. ISSN 1101-1262. 29. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi (2019). Compared to whom? Reference groups in socio-economic comparisons and self-reported health. European Journal of Public Health. ISSN 1101-1262. 29. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi & Jarosz, Ewa (2019). Inequality, validity of self-reported height, and its implications for BMI estimates: An analysis of randomly selected primary sampling units' data. Preventive Medicine Reports. 16, p. 1–8. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2019.100974. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Any systematic errors in self-reported height, a measure commonly used in health research, may produce biased BMI estimates and reduce the effectiveness of public health interventions. To our knowledge, none of the studies evaluating the validity of self-reported height explore this issue in cross-national settings. This study analyses data on a sub-set of 750 individuals with information on self-reported and measured height from the Life in Transition Survey (LITS) conducted in 34 European and Central Asian countries in 2016. We make use of the unique design of LITS in which all respondents reported their height, but in one randomly selected primary sampling unit in each country the actual height was also measured, using a portable stadiometer. In addition to analysing individual-level characteristics, using a multiply imputed dataset for missing data and multilevel mixed-effects regressions, we test if macro-level factors are associated with respondents under- or over-reporting their height. We find that on the aggregate level self-reported and measured height estimates are not statistically different, but some socio-demographic groups such as women and those who live in rural areas are likely to overestimate their height. Adjusting for this bias would lead to the higher estimates of the proportion of individuals who are overweight and obese. The results from multilevel analysis also show that macro-level factors do not per se explain the likelihood of misreporting height, but rather some of the effects of individual characteristics are moderated by income inequality.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2019). A multilevel analysis of perceived intergenerational mobility and welfare state preferences. International Journal of Social Welfare. ISSN 1369-6866. 28(1), p. 16–30. doi: 10.1111/ijsw.12316. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi; Jarosz, Ewa & McKee, Martin (2019). Compared with whom? Reference groups in socio-economic comparisons and self-reported health in 34 countries. International Journal of Epidemiology. ISSN 0300-5771. 48(8), p. 1710–1720. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyz122. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background The association between socio-economic position and health is believed to be mediated, in part, by psycho-social comparison of one’s situation with that of others. But with whom? Possibilities include family, friends, elites, or even those in other countries or in previous times. So far, there has been almost no research on whether the reference point matters. Methods We take advantage of a comparative data set that, uniquely, allows us to ask this question. The Life in Transition Survey was conducted in four Southern European and 30 Central and Eastern European and Eurasian countries. We sought differences in the probability of good self-reported health among those using different reference groups, including own family, friends and neighbours, domestic elites, people living in other countries and those living prior to a major politico-economic transition. We used multivariable and multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regressions and estimated treatment effects via the regression adjustment of Poisson models. Results In most cases the choice of reference group did not matter but in some it did. Among men in Eastern European and Eurasian societies, those who compared themselves with their parents and their own families before the start of transition were less likely to report good health compared with those who did not compare their own economic situation with any specific reference group. Conclusions For some individuals, the choice of who to compare one’s situation with does seem to matter, pointing to an area for future investigation in research on psycho-social determinants of health.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Zhao, Yizhang & Bukodi, Erzsebet (2019). ‘Falling from grace’ and ‘rising from rags’: Intergenerational educational mobility and depressive symptoms. Social Science and Medicine. ISSN 0277-9536. 222, p. 294–304. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.12.027. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  With this study, we make a number of contributions to the ongoing debate on the implications of intergenerational mobility for individuals' health. First, instead of focusing on absolute intergenerational mobility in educational attainment, we analyse varying implications of relative intergenerational mobility for depressive symptoms by considering the distribution of educational credentials separately in the parental and offspring generations. Second, unlike conventional approaches, which predominantly emphasise that upward and downward mobility has a negative effect, we argue that upward mobility might improve individuals' mental well-being and that this effect may vary by gender. Third, we use statistical approach which was designed specifically to study the consequences of intergenerational mobility and does not conflate mobility effects with effects of the positions of origin and destination. Using the 2012–2014 waves of the European Social Survey and data for 52,773 individuals nested in 28 societies, we fit the diagonal reference models with both individuals' short- and long-range experiences of intergenerational educational mobility. The results indicate that upward and downward mobility is associated with, respectively, lower and higher levels of depressive symptoms, as measured with the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and that these effects are only observed among men.

• Jarosz, Ewa & Gugushvili, Alexi (2019). Parental education, health literacy and children’s adult body height. Journal of Biosocial Science. ISSN 0021-9320. 52(5), p. 696–718. doi: 10.1017/S0021932019000737. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Human anthropometric traits, while significantly determined by genetic factors, are also affected by an individual’s early life environment. An adult’s body height is a valid indicator of their living conditions in childhood. Parental education has been shown to be one of the key covariates of individuals’ health and height, both in childhood and adulthood. Parental functional literacy has been demonstrated to be another important determinant of child health, but this has largely been overlooked in studies on height. The objective of this study was to analyse the associations between parents’ education, their functional literacy and their children’s adult body height. The study used data for 39,240 individuals from the 2016 wave of the nationally representative Life in Transition Survey (LITS) conducted in 34 countries in Southern and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Using linear and Poisson models, regression adjustment treatment estimators and multilevel mixed-effects linear regressions, the study analysed the links between mother’s and father’s educational attainment, parental functional literacy, measured by the number of books in the childhood home, and children’s adult height. The models also included other individual and contextual covariates of height. The results demonstrated that mother’s educational attainment and parental functional literacy have independent associations with children’s adult body height. Sufficient literacy skills of the parent may have a positive effect on children’s growth even if parental education is low. These associations remained significant across time. The study also provides evidence of a widening of the height gap for men born in the period just before and after systemic transition in post-socialist societies, which may suggest an increase in social differences in early living standards.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Reeves, Aaron (2019). How do perceived changes in inequality affect health? Health and Place. ISSN 1353-8292. 62, p. 1–9. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2019.102276. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Individuals do not possess an entirely accurate assessment of the level of income differences in their society and so changes in quantitative measures of income inequality may not always align with changes in the perceptions of income inequality. This disconnect is partly driven by how people form their opinions about the level of inequality. In this study we explore whether there is an association between perceptions of inequality and health, and if so, how it differs depending on the specific channel through which people formed their opinions about changes in income inequality. Drawing on data from 31 European and Eurasian countries, we find that both men and women are more likely to report bad health when their perceptions of increasing inequality are formed through experiences of inequality in their communities than through media and other channels.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; McKee, Martin; Azarova, Aytalina & Murphy, Michael (2018). Parental transmission of smoking among middle-aged and older populations in Russia and Belarus. International Journal of Public Health. ISSN 1661-8556. 63(3), p. 349–358. doi: 10.1007/s00038-017-1068-0. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Objectives The very high rates of smoking among men and the rapid changes among women in the Post-Soviet countries mean that this region offers an opportunity to understand better the intergenerational role of parental influences on smoking. Methods In this study, we exploit a unique data set, the PrivMort cohort study conducted in 30 Russian and 20 Belarusian towns in 2014–2015, which collects information on behaviours of middle-aged and older individuals and their parents, including smoking. We explored the associations between smoking by parents and their offspring using multiply imputed data sets and multilevel mixed-effect Poisson regressions. Results Adjusting for a wide array of social origin, socio-demographic, and socio-economic variables, our analysis suggests that sons of regularly smoking fathers have prevalence ratios of 1.35 [95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.21–1.50] and 1.39 (CI 1.23–1.58) of smoking, while the figures for daughters of regularly smoking mothers are 1.91 (CI 1.40–2.61) and 2.30 (CI 1.61–3.28), respectively, in Russia and Belarus. Conclusions Intergenerational paternal and maternal influences on smoking should be taken into account in studies seeking to monitor the rates of smoking and the impact of tobacco control programmes.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2018). A multilevel study of validity of self-reported height. European Journal of Public Health. ISSN 1101-1262. 28(4), p. 264–165. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Quality of self-reported data on individuals’ height has implications for social epidemiology and public health. Height along with weight is used to calculate individuals’ body mass index (BMI). Since the large share of data on height in demographic and health surveys are based on individuals’ declarations, any systemic errors in this measure may produce biased BMI estimates and reduce the effectiveness of anti-obesity interventions and public health campaigns.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Azarova, Aytalina; Irdam, Darja & Crenna-Jennings, Whitney (2018). Correlates of frequent alcohol consumption among middle-aged and older men and women in Russia: A multilevel analysis of the PrivMort retrospective cohort study. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. ISSN 0376-8716. 188, p. 39–44. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2018.03.038. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background A large proportion of premature deaths in Russia since the early 1990s, following the transition from communism, have been attributed to hazardous drinking. Little is known about the correlates of alcohol consumption. We present new data on the consumption of alcoholic beverages among middle-aged and older Russians and identify socio-demographic, socio-economic, and life-course correlates of frequent drinking. Methods Within the framework of the PrivMort project, conducted in 30 industrial towns in the European part of Russia, we acquired information on the frequency of drinking among 22,796 respondents and 57,907 of their surviving and deceased relatives. We fit three-level mixed-effects logistic regression models of frequent drinking in which respondents’ relatives, aged 40 and over, are nested in their families and towns. Results Deceased male relatives consumed alcohol significantly more often, while deceased female relatives consumed alcohol significantly less often than the respondents of corresponding gender. In a multivariable analysis, we found that individuals’ education, communication with family members, labour market status, history of unemployment, and occupational attainment are all significant correlates of frequent drinking in Russia. These associations are stronger among men rather than among women. Conclusion There are significant differences between frequency of drinking among surviving and deceased individuals and frequent drinking is associated with a wide array of individual socio-demographic, socio-economic, and life course factors that can partially explain high alcohol consumption in post-communist Russia.

• Kabachnik, Peter; Gugushvili, Alexi & Kirvalidze, Ana (2018). What about the Monument? Public Opinion and Contentious Politics in Stalin’s Homeland. Problems of Post-Communism. ISSN 1075-8216. 67(3), p. 264–276. doi: 10.1080/10758216.2018.1540276. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The article uses mixed methods to explore the politics of memory surrounding the Stalin monument in Gori, Georgia, which was removed by the government in 2010. We employ bivariate and multivariate statistics to analyze people’s preferences in Georgia concerning the monument’s fate using socio-demographic, socio-economic, spatial, and political variables, identifying six factors as offering explanatory power: gender, age, place, socialization, education, and attitudes toward Vladimir Putin. We identify three main narratives in the qualitative data analysis: the desire to continue displaying the monument somewhere; the futility of monument battles; and the appeal to democratic principles in deciding these cases.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2017). Change or continuity? Intergenerational social mobility and post-communist transition. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. ISSN 0276-5624. 52, p. 59–71. doi: 10.1016/j.rssm.2017.10.004. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Regime change experienced in post-communist societies is of great significance for research in social stratification and mobility. Nonetheless, the existing literature does not provide a clear answer if cross-national differences in social mobility are determined by communist legacies or by the divergent paths these countries followed in their transition to the capitalist system. It is hypothesised that higher income inequality and an overall decline in material wellbeing would increase the importance of parental economic capital, whereas the relative role of parental cultural capital in offspring’s life chances would decline. For 24 societies in Central and Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, I find evidence on the decisive role of social origins, particularly parental education, in predicting individuals’ educational and occupational attainment. However, significant and systematic changes in intergenerational social mobility from pre- to post-transitional cohorts are not observed. The derived findings are robust to alternative specifications of social origins and destinations. Arguably, differences in intergenerational links between parents’ and offspring’s socio-economic status resulted from historical discrepancies in the communist period rather than the consequences of idiosyncratic developments in post-communist transition.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2017). Political democracy, economic liberalization, and macro-sociological models of intergenerational mobility. Social Science Research. ISSN 0049-089X. 66, p. 58–81. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.06.003. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Building on the previously investigated macro-sociological models which analyze the consequences of economic development, income inequality, and international migration on social mobility, this article studies the specific contextual covariates of intergenerational reproduction of occupational status in post-communist societies. It is theorized that social mobility is higher in societies with democratic political regimes and less liberalized economies. The outlined hypotheses are tested by using micro- and macro-level datasets for 21 post-communist societies which are fitted into multilevel mixed-effects linear regressions. The derived findings suggest that factors specific to transition societies, conventional macro-level variables, and the legacy of the Soviet Union explain variation in intergenerational social mobility, but the results vary depending which birth cohorts survey participants belong to and whether or not they stem from advantaged or disadvantaged social origins. These findings are robust to various alternative data, sample, and method specifications.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2017). The effect of rapid privatisation on mortality in mono-industrial towns in post-Soviet Russia: a retrospective cohort study. The Lancet Public Health. ISSN 2468-2667. 2(5), p. e231–e238. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(17)30072-5. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background Population-level data suggest that economic disruptions in the early 1990s increased working-age male mortality in post-Soviet countries. This study uses individual-level data, using an indirect estimation method, to test the hypothesis that fast privatisation increased mortality in Russia. Methods In this retrospective cohort study, we surveyed surviving relatives of individuals who lived through the post-communist transition to retrieve demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of their parents, siblings, and male partners. The survey was done within the framework of the European Research Council (ERC) project PrivMort (The Impact of Privatization on the Mortality Crisis in Eastern Europe). We surveyed relatives in 20 mono-industrial towns in the European part of Russia (ie, the landmass to the west of the Urals). We compared ten fast-privatised and ten slow-privatised towns selected using propensity score matching. In the selected towns, population surveys were done in which respondents provided information about vital status, sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics and health-related behaviours of their parents, two eldest siblings (if eligible), and first husbands or long-term partners. We calculated indirect age-standardised mortality rates in fast and slow privatised towns and then, in multivariate analyses, calculated Poisson proportional incidence rate ratios to estimate the effect of rapid privatisation on all-cause mortality risk. Findings Between November, 2014, and March, 2015, 21 494 households were identified in 20 towns. Overall, 13 932 valid interviews were done (with information collected for 38 339 relatives [21 634 men and 16 705 women]). Fast privatisation was strongly associated with higher working-age male mortality rates both between 1992 and 1998 (age-standardised mortality ratio in men aged 20–69 years in fast vs slow privatised towns: 1·13, SMR 0·83, 95% CI 0·77–0·88 vs 0·73, 0·69–0·77, respectively) and from 1999 to 2006 (1·15, 0·91, 0·86–0·97 vs 0·79, 0·75–0·84). After adjusting for age, marital status, material deprivation history, smoking, drinking and socioeconomic status, working-age men in fast-privatised towns experienced 13% higher mortality than in slow-privatised towns (95% CI 1–26). Interpretation The rapid pace of privatisation was a significant factor in the marked increase in working-age male mortality in post-Soviet Russia. By providing compelling evidence in support of the health benefits of a slower pace of privatisation, this study can assist policy makers in making informed decisions about the speed and scope of government interventions.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2017). Georgia’s Middle Class in the Making: Methods of Measurement, Trends, and Constraints. Caucasus Analytical Digest. 95, p. 6–10. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Since 2016, Georgia has been categorized as an upper middle-income economy by the World Bank. "e latter corresponds to the trends from the various micro-level data sets, which suggest that the middle class has been expanding in the recent years. However, what can be referred to as ‘the middle class’ in the Georgian context is still largely in the making, and this process remains vulnerable to endemic problems such as high inequality, low urbanization, agricultural underdevelopment, and the existence of rather large, vulnerable social groups. Political stability, geopolitics and international economic shocks all play a role in the prospects of the middle class in Georgia.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Bukodi, Erzsebet & H., Goldthorpe John (2017). The Direct Effect of Social Origins on Social Mobility Chances: ‘Glass Floors’ and ‘Glass Ceilings’ in Britain. European Sociological Review. ISSN 0266-7215. 33(2), p. 305–316. doi: 10.1093/esr/jcx043. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In this article we pursue, using appropriate British birth cohort data, various issues that arise from recent research into the ‘direct’ effect of social origins on individuals’ social mobility chances: i.e. the effect that is not mediated by education and that can be seen as giving rise to non-meritocratic ‘glass floors’ and ‘glass ceilings’. We show that if educational level is determined at labour market entry, class destinations are significantly associated with class origins independently of education. However, we go on to investigate how far the direct effect may be underestimated by an insufficiently comprehensive treatment of social origins, and also how far it may be overestimated by a failure to take into account the effects of later-life education and resulting changes in individuals’ relative qualification levels. Finally, having arrived at our best estimates of the extent of the direct effect, we seek to identify factors that mediate it. While individuals’ cognitive ability and sense of locus of control prove to play some part, reported parental help in the labour market does not appear to be of any great importance. Some implications of our findings both for further research and for the ideal of an education-based meritocracy are considered.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Kabachnik, Peter & Kirvalidze, Ana (2017). Collective memory and reputational politics of national heroes and villains. Nationalities Papers. ISSN 0090-5992. 45(3), p. 464–484. doi: 10.1080/00905992.2016.1261821. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The politics of memory plays an important role in the ways certain figures are evaluated and remembered, as they can be rehabilitated or vilified, or both, as these processes are contested. We explore these issues using a transition society, Georgia, as a case study. Who are the heroes and villains in Georgian collective memory? What factors influence who is seen as a hero or a villain and why? How do these selections correlate with Georgian national identity? We attempt to answer these research questions using a newly generated data set of contemporary Georgian perspectives on recent history. Our survey results show that according to a representative sample of the Georgian population, the main heroes from the beginning of the twentieth century include Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Ilia Chavchavadze, and Patriarch Ilia II. Eduard Shevardnadze, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, and Vladimir Putin represent the main villains, and those that appear on both lists are Mikheil Saakashvili and Joseph Stalin. We highlight two clusters of attitudes that are indicative of how people think about Georgian national identity, mirroring civic and ethnic conceptions of nationalism. How Georgians understand national identity impacts not only who they choose as heroes or villains, but also whether they provide an answer at all.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2016). Intergenerational Social Mobility and Popular Explanations of Poverty: A Comparative Perspective. Social justice research. ISSN 0885-7466. 29(4), p. 402–428. doi: 10.1007/s11211-016-0275-9. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article explores the consequences of intergenerational social mobility on perceptions of popular explanations of poverty. It is hypothesised that those who experience improvements in socio-economic status through social mobility are more likely to blame poverty on individual characteristics such as laziness and lack of willpower and are less likely to attribute failure to injustice in society, and on the macro-level, the effect of social mobility on perceptions of popular explanations of poverty is moderated by contextual environment. The described hypotheses are tested by using multinomial and multilevel logistic regressions and two complementary datasets—European Values Studies and the Life in Transition Survey. The derived findings suggest that social mobility is indeed associated with perceptions of individual blame and social blame of why some people are in need. However, these effects are manifested primarily among subjectively mobile individuals and are also conditioned by the legacy of socialism and the level of economic development of countries where individuals reside.

• Gugushvili, Alexi; Kabachnik, Peter & Gilbreath, Aaron H. (2016). Cartographies of Stalin: Place, Scale, and Reputational Poli. Professional Geographer. ISSN 0033-0124. 68(3), p. 356–367. doi: 10.1080/00330124.2015.1089104. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract In this article we explore the spatial variation of support for former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in his home country, Georgia. This research contributes to the literature on reputational politics by highlighting the role of spatial, rather than only social, factors in the construction of public opinion about Stalin. We illustrate how geographic factors impact Georgians' perceptions of the Soviet dictator by examining various aspects of place at various scales—including distance to Gori, Stalin's birthplace, the history of urbanization, and economic and political indices. To this end we map attitudes toward the Soviet dictator and use a multilevel spatial regression technique to explain variance in support for Stalin across forty-seven districts of Georgia. This enables us to explore the impact of place on people's attitudes by examining (1) whether there are local and regional hotspots of Stalin admiration and, if so, (2) what the contextual explanations of these attitudes are.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2016). Intergenerational objective and subjective mobility and attitudes towards income differences: evidence from transition societies. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy. ISSN 2169-9763. 32(3), p. 199–219. doi: 10.1080/21699763.2016.1206482. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article explores the association between intergenerational social mobility and attitudes towards income differences in post-socialist societies. I hypothesise that based on the psychological mechanism of self-serving bias in causal attribution, those who experience upward social mobility are more likely to support greater income differences, and that subjective intergenerational mobility has stronger association with attitudes towards income differences than objective mobility because individuals filter their objective environment in order to derive their subjective perceptions of the world and their own experiences. The described hypotheses are tested with two cross-national data sets – European Values Studies and Life in Transition Survey. The derived findings are robust to alternative statistical specifications and indicate that individuals who perceive themselves as subjectively mobile have significantly different attitudes towards income differences in comparison to non-mobile groups, but that this effect does not manifest among objectively mobile individuals.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2016). “Money can’t buy me land”: Foreign land ownership regime and public opinion in a transition society. Land Use Policy. ISSN 0264-8377. 142-153, p. 142–153. doi: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.03.032. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In recent years, as part of the broader policies of economic liberalization, the sale of agricultural land to foreign citizens has attracted considerable political, social and media attention in transition societies. The regime of land ownership in Georgia has evolved from the complete restriction of foreign acquisition in the beginning of the 1990s, to the unrestricted sale of land to foreign citizens from 2010 onwards. An analysis of newly-available data from International Social Survey Programme’s (ISSP) National Identity module suggests that respondents in Georgia, along with Russia, hold the most negative attitudes toward selling land to foreigners compared to other countries. I hypothesize that this is the result of a confluence of factors such as the communist legacy, historical memory, rural nationalism, agricultural underdevelopment and inequality. The quantitative part of this article tests socio-demographic, geographic, ideological, and identity-based explanations of within-country variation in attitudes toward the purchase of land by foreigners. The results suggest that socio-demographic and geographic variables such as respondents’ age and regional belonging explain some variance in the dependent variable, but that the major effects stem from individuals’ perceptions of economic protectionism, xenophobia, and ethnic national identity.

• Irdam, Darja; King, Lawrence P & Gugushvili, Alexi (2016). Mortality in Transition: Study Protocol of the PrivMort Project, a multilevel convenience cohort study. BMC Public Health. 16(672), p. 1–8. doi: 10.1186/s12889-016-3249-9. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Background Previous research using routine data identified rapid mass privatisation as an important driver of mortality crisis following the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. However, existing studies on the mortality crisis relying on individual level or routine data cannot assess both distal (societal) and proximal (individual) causes of mortality simultaneously. The aim of the PrivMort Project is to overcome these limitations and to investigate the role of societal factors (particularly rapid mass privatisation) and individual-level factors (e.g. alcohol consumption) in the mortality changes in post-communist countries. Methods The PrivMort conducts large-sample surveys in Russia, Belarus and Hungary. The approach is unique in comparing towns that have undergone rapid privatisation of their key industrial enterprises with those that experienced more gradual forms of privatisation, employing a multi-level retrospective cohort design that combines data on the industrial characteristics of the towns, socio-economic descriptions of the communities, settlement-level data, individual socio-economic characteristics, and individuals’ health behaviour. It then incorporates data on mortality of different types of relatives of survey respondents, employing a retrospective demographic approach, which enables linkage of historical patterns of mortality to exposures, based on experiences of family members. By May 2016, 63,073 respondents provided information on themselves and 205,607 relatives, of whom 102,971 had died. The settlement-level dataset contains information on 539 settlements and 12,082 enterprises in these settlements in Russia, 96 settlements and 271 enterprises in Belarus, and 52 settlement and 148 enterprises in Hungary. Discussion In addition to reinforcing existing evidence linking smoking, hazardous drinking and unemployment to mortality, the PrivMort dataset will investigate the variation in transition experiences for individual respondents and their families across settlements characterized by differing contextual factors, including industrial characteristics, simultaneously providing information about how excess mortality is distributed across settlements with various privatization strategies.

• Gugushvili, Alexi & Kabachnik, Peter (2015). Stalin is dead, long live Stalin? Testing socialization, structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender hypotheses. Post-Soviet Affairs. ISSN 1060-586X. 31(1), p. 1–36. doi: 10.1080/1060586X.2014.940697. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Recently, there has been a renewed focus on analyzing post-Soviet memory, including the rekindling of debate on contemporary perspectives of Josef Stalin. Most notably, the publication of The Stalin Puzzle has helped bring attention to the persistence of positive accounts and admiration, along with ambivalent and contested images, of the former dictator of the Soviet Union. Using survey data and multivariate statistical methods, we test five broad hypotheses – socialization, structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender – to ascertain what factors might shape people's attitudes toward Stalin in Georgia. Our analysis reveals that elderly, poor men from rural areas have the most positive associations of Stalin, whereas young, wealthier women from cities, those who are open to privatization, and perceive Russia as Georgia's biggest threat judge Stalin negatively. Counterintuitively, non-Georgian minorities show higher esteem for Stalin than Georgians. We envision that the effects of cohort replacement, economic development, and urbanization will decrease positive perceptions of Stalin in years to come.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2015). Self-interest, Perceptions of Transition and Welfare Preferences in the New Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus. Europe-Asia Studies. ISSN 0966-8136. 67(5), p. 718–746. doi: 10.1080/09668136.2015.1045451. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article studies public welfare preferences in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Generalised ordered logistic regression models and predicted probabilities are employed to analyse comparable attitudinal survey data. The results vary considerably among the countries, but age is the most important covariate of welfare preferences, followed by individuals’ socio-economic characteristics. The findings also indicate that popular perceptions of transition, notably in Ukraine and Moldova, are most strongly linked to preferences concerning the state's involvement in reducing the gap between the rich and the poor rather than to preferences regarding the main welfare state programmes such as pensions and healthcare.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2015). Economic Liberalization and Intergenerational Mobility in Occupational Status. Comparative Sociology. ISSN 1569-1322. 14(6), p. 790–820. doi: 10.1163/15691330-12341368. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  One of the most important components of post-socialist transition has been economic liberalization. This article inquiries into how the latter is associated with intergenerational mobility in occupational status. Using European Values Studies (evs) data from the nationally representative samples for a large number of post-socialist societies, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (ebrd) index of economic liberalization, and multilevel mixed-effects linear regressions, I test the “meritocracy as functional imperative” perspective which implies that life chances depend on the efficiency considerations of liberalized economy. The derived results are robust to alternative model and variable specifications and suggest that economic liberalization explains cross-national differences in intergenerational status reproduction, and is better suited for macro-sociological models of mobility in occupational status than other conventional contextual explanations such as economic development and income inequality.

• Kabachnik, Peter & Gugushvili, Alexi (2015). Unconditional love? Exploring hometown effect in Stalin's birthplace. Caucasus survey. ISSN 2376-1199. 3(2), p. 101–123. doi: 10.1080/23761199.2015.1044305. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article explores the impact of spatial location – place – on people's attitudes by examining whether support for Stalin is concentrated in his birthplace: Gori, Georgia. Using a variety of multivariate statistical methods, including propensity score-matching, we examine a recent survey indicating high levels of admiration for Stalin in his home country. We explore two main questions: First, is there a “hometown effect” – do people in Gori love Stalin unconditionally because they came from the same place? Second, is Gori so exceptional from the rest of Georgia? We conclude that there is indeed a stronger level of support for Stalin in Gori, but when shifting scales and looking within the category, we find that the highest admiration stems from the town's rural outskirts.

• Kabachnik, Peter; Gugushvili, Alexi & Jishkariani, David (2015). A Personality Cult's Rise and Fall: Three Cities after Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" and the Stalin Monument that Never Was. REGION: Regional Studies of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. ISSN 2166-4307. 4(2), p. 309–326. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  reappeared. These battles, both symbolic and material, over monuments fuel and exemplify contemporary "memory wars." This article highlights the disparate meanings of three historical Stalin monuments that served as focal points for three major cases of mass demonstrations during Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign: Tbilisi, Budapest, and Prague. Next, drawing on newly found materials from Tbilisi's Central Committee Archive of the Communist Party of Georgia, this article discusses Bogdan Muradovich Kirakosian's never-realized project to build a massive Stalin monument that would have overlooked Tbilisi. Last is the analysis of survey data that captures individuals' attitudes towards Stalin for those born in Georgia before 1945 in order to surmise how such a grand monument to Stalin would have been received at the time.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2014). The Georgian Dream of Pension Reforms. Caucasus Analytical Digest. 60, p. 6–8. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Although old-age benefits help to alleviate poverty in Georgia, the system does not satisfy its main stakeholders. Retirees believe that pensions are unfair and inadequate, while experts and governmental officials realize the growing burden of benefits for the country’s public finances. The past experience of pension (non) reforms suggest that changes are sensitive to the government’s capacity to reform, the fiscal health of the economy, political stability and the ideological preferences of the ruling elites. The transfer of power through parliamentary and presidential elections in 2012–2013 opened an opportunity for reforming the pension system based on broad public consensus and economic sustainability.

• Jr, CH Fairbanks & Gugushvili, Alexi (2013). A new chance for Georgian democracy. Journal of Democracy. ISSN 1045-5736. 24(1), p. 116–127. doi: 10.1353/jod.2013.0002. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Something amazing happened in Georgia’s 1 October 2012 parliamentary elections. The government lost and it gave up power, aside from the now-weakened presidency that it will hold for another year. A new coalition known as Georgian Dream ran under the leadership of Georgia’s richest man, the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, and won 85 seats in the unicameral, 150-member Parliament. Georgia’s post-Soviet background and circumstances make the 2012 opposition win and subsequent orderly handover of power truly remarkable. Indeed, among the “competitive authoritarian” regimes found in what used to be the USSR, it is nearly unheard of. Georgia is lucky to be getting a fourth chance at democracy, after the opportunities under Zviad Gamsakhurdia (1990–92), Eduard Shevardnadze (1992–2003), and Saakashvili faded. But this chance remains a fragile one.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2013). Social Origin, Education and Occupation in Georgia. Caucasus Social Science Review. ISSN 2669-5359. 1(1), p. 1–26. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Using data from the Generations and Gender Survey for the cohorts born from 1926 to 1985 in Georgia, and the linear probability models of higher educational and ISCO 1-2 occupational attainment, I find the large ascriptive inequalities of life chances, which especially intensified for those born in 1976-85. Having parents with the lower socio-economic status negatively and significantly associates with life prospects. Although tertiary education serves mainly as the mediator of social origin, the latter also exerts a direct effect on the occupational attainment. One of the reasons why the inequalities in life chances have increased in recent decades is the growing gap between educational expansion and occupational upgrade and the resultant inflation of credentials.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2011). Understanding Poverty in Georgia. Caucasus Analytical Digest. 34, p. 15–18. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Over the last two decades, the profile of the poor has been evolving in Georgia, but the poverty level has remained consistently high. If the official subsistence minimum is taken as the poverty line, slightly more than two-fifths of the population is poor according to the latest estimations. Arguably, persisting high poverty levels can be explained by jobless economic growth and low agricultural productivity. The institutionalisation of a targeted social assistance scheme has yet to demonstrate its efficacy. Instead of using perverse estimates of relative poverty, the government should acknowledge deprivation as the major challenge for the country and must more eagerly attempt to cure it root causes—inappropriate human capital and narrow labour markets.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2010). Towards a Welfare Research Framework in the Countries of Eastern Partnership Initiative. European Journal of East Asian Studies. ISSN 1568-0584. 3(1), p. 349–379. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative is a European Union (EU) project aiming to advance socioeconomic development in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. To date, virtually no research has been done on comparative welfare systems in these countries. This paper aims to narrow this gap. It is argued here that the comparative welfare state approach for the Central and Eastern European and Baltic Post-Communist countries is not appropriate for the selected region, since weak democratic institutions and economic underperformance contradict the primary foundations of the welfare state. The paper instead considers a welfare regime paradigm developed for less advanced nations. The empirical part of the study is based on the hierarchical and kmeans clustering method to analyse different welfare outcome and welfare effort indicators and on binomial logistic regression technique to analyse public attitudes towards welfare. The results of the study indicate that the welfare outcomes in EaP countries can be clustered into three distinct groups, but that using conventional welfare state variables, such as the total government outlay on welfare programmes, and welfare attitudes cannot explain the systematic determinants of varying welfare performance among the countries. It appears that employing the welfare regime framework, which more vividly takes into account the domestic and international activities of state, market and household, can increase the robustness of welfare research of the strategies employed by EaP countries to address their social risks. Nevertheless, the problems with data availability and reliability might restrict the comparative research framework to only a few specific social welfare dimensions.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2009). Political Economy of Old-age Pension Reforms in Georgia. Caucasian Review of International Affairs (CRIA). 3(4), p. 371–386. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The paper examines the factors that played a major role in development of the old-age pension system in Georgia. Based on data collected from 1991-2009, this analysis centers on the system’s patterns of development and identifies four main attempts to reform the old-age pension system. Economic performance, demographic aging, domestic political constellations, and external influence are traditionally thought to be responsible for the pension system reforms. Qualitative data analyses and in-depth interviews have been used to test these explanations. This analysis did not confirm the hypotheses, but it revealed that fiscal constraints and international technical assistance were the main factors behind reforms during the first two chronological attempts to change the system. Political factors and liberal economic ideology influenced the patterns of old-age pension policy development from 2004–2008, while the negative outcomes of the Russian-Georgian War and World Financial Crisis are currently the major obstacles for comprehensive pension reforms. The limitations of this study suggest that in order to clarify the exact nature of old-age pension system, shorter time periods and separate reform initiatives should be investigated.

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• Präg, Patrick; Ersanilli, Evelyn & Gugushvili, Alexi (2025). Transforming European Societies through open access and transparency. European Societies. ISSN 1461-6696. 27(1), p. 3–3. doi: 10.1162/euso_e_00025. Full text in Research Archive
• Grue, Jan; Gugushvili, Alexi; Dokken, Therese & Finnvold, Jon Erik (2025). 3. desember er FNs dag for mennesker med nedsatt funksjonsevne. Men hva nå? Aftenposten. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Dessverre viser vår forskning at rettigheter alene er dypt utilstrekkelig. Det trengs reelle plikter og økonomiske forpliktelser.

• Martsenyuk, Tamara; Gugushvili, Alexi; Ersanilli, Evelyn & Präg, Patrick (2024). Understanding Ukrainian society before and after the Russian invasion. European Societies. ISSN 1461-6696. doi: 10.1080/14616696.2024.2350780. Full text in Research Archive
• Finnvold, Jon Erik; Dokken, Therese; Grue, Jan & Gugushvili, Alexi (2023). Growing up with a disability in Norway: Towards equality in educational outcomes? Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi & Zelinska, Olga (2023). Correction to: What are the Trends and Explanations of Perceived Social Mobility in Poland? (Applied Research in Quality of Life, (2022), 10.1007/s11482-022-10105-4). Applied Research in Quality of Life. ISSN 1871-2584. doi: 10.1007/s11482-022-10123-2. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi (2022). Disability and life chances: Norway in comparative perspective. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi & Jarosz, Ewa (2021). What is a relationship between BMI and life satisfaction. The European Journal of Public Health. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckab165.421. Full text in Research Archive
• Gugushvili, Alexi & Reeves, Aaron (2021). How democracy alters our view of inequality and what this means for wellbeing. The European Journal of Public Health. 31. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckab164.089. Full text in Research Archive
• Tyagi, Rishabh; Skirbekk, Vegard Fykse; Gugushvili, Alexi; Dudel, Christian & Myrskylä, Mikko (2025). The Disparate Effects of Employment Uncertainty on Life Course Outcomes. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Job loss and unemployment have long-lasting effects on individuals' career trajectories, as well as other life course outcomes. This doctoral thesis is based on four empirical studies in Germany, Norway, and India. The first study in the German context shows that experiencing involuntary job loss for men increases the risk of partnership dissolution by almost 65% within three years of the job loss. However, men with egalitarian gender attitudes (who perform a relatively higher share of housework and childcare among other men) did not experience an increased risk of partnership dissolution following job loss. The second and third studies examine the impact of employment uncertainty due to workplace closures on first and second birth outcomes in the Norwegian context. The first study at the individual level shows that experiencing a workplace closure does not affect men’s birth outcomes, while for women, there is a negative anticipation effect on birth outcomes before closure happens, and a positive effect on birth outcomes after workplace closure. The experience of workplace closure does not affect the total number of children at age 49 for either men or women. The third study takes a couple's perspective and finds that the Female partner’s job loss negatively influences couples’ decisions to become parents, while the male partner's job loss negatively influences the couple’s decisions to have second children. The negative effects of job loss are more pronounced for low-income couples. The fourth article finds a positive association between adult children's unemployment and their parents' risk of depression in the Indian context. Parents with high levels of social participation did not experience an increased risk of depression associated with their adult children's unemployment. Parents living in low or medium-income inequality states also experience a weaker association of children's unemployment with their own depression risk. This doctoral thesis demonstrates that employment uncertainty due to job loss and unemployment affects partnership dissolution risk, reproductive decisions, and mental health outcomes of their family, too. The extent to which these life course outcomes are affected is also shaped by the individual, regional and welfare characteristics.

• Gugushvili, Alexi (2012). The (non) Reform of the Georgian Pension system, 1991-2011: A Brief History and Update. Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This study reviews the factors that played a major role in the development of the old-age pension system in Georgia, 1991-2009 and identifies three main stages in this process. Fiscal constraints and international technical assistance were the main factors behind reform initiatives undertaken before 2003 and during the first attempts to change the system. Political factors and liberal economic ideology influenced the patterns of pension policy development in the period 2004–2008, while the negative economic outcomes surrounding the Russian-Georgian War and Global Financial Crisis, along with decreasing political legitimacy, are thought to be major obstacles for comprehensive pension reform at present. The main lesson drawn by this study concerning the post 2012–2013 election-cycle pension initiatives is that decisive steps should be taken based on hard evidence, rather than ideological conviction.

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